So again, let me just reiterate
that The therefore in our verse Makes this verse a conclusion
of What he said before which is very simple Christ is all
I abandon everything else. I Renounce everything and everybody
else Press toward Christ desire nothing but Christ, I don't want
my righteousness, I want Christ's. And he's saying to a certain group of people,
let's all be minded in that same way, let's be thus minded. And
here the word perfect, we should notice in verse 15 here, that
the word perfect there is, The second time in a few verses here
that that word is used, but here the word perfect is mature full-grown
Adult Rather than a babe an adult Paul
is referring here to having come To a knowledge of Christ to this
point Where it's not just doctrines
anymore, it's not just a I know that he shall rise again in the
resurrection. He is the resurrection. That's
where Paul had come to. His knowledge, his understanding
of things, his own arm of the flesh, he abandoned all of it
in pursuit of somebody. That is an attainment to come
to that place. That's the word perfect in verse
15. It's not just people trust their
knowledge of doctrine rather than the one of whom the doctrines speak. And I'll show you that in the
word of God, that's not just logic or observation, that's
scripture. People tend to trust knowledge.
I know, as I've quoted, I know that he shall rise again. I believe
in the resurrection. But the Lord said, I am. That's
the difference. When you've arrived there, as
many as therefore be perfect in that sense, you've arrived
to that place where it's a person, where salvation's a person. There
is an attainment. Verse 16, verse 16 talks about
attaining, arriving at a certain place. There is an attainment
to which a sinner arrives through growth in grace. What is growth
in grace? Well, our Lord said, grow in
grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. By growing
in grace and in the knowledge of him, which in itself is a
grace of God. That growth in grace is a grace
that comes from God. It's an ability and an achievement. It's not a human achievement,
but a degree of revelation that the Apostle Paul says that he'd
come to here, even though he said, I haven't arrived in verse
12. He said, I haven't, I'm not perfect. Look at verse 12. I'm not yet
perfect, neither have I attained. That's not a contradiction though,
that's what I want us to understand first of all here, the different
meanings of the word perfect in the believer's experience. And when I say the believer's
experience, I don't just mean our feelings and things like
that, I mean what God does in us, what he does for us and in
us. So there's that attainment in
verse 16, to which Paul said, as many as have attained, as
many have come to that place, let this mind be, and you be
thus minded to attain unto that in verse 12, perfect knowledge
of Christ. That's the pursuit. Paul did
not consider himself to have fully attained, because no one
does in this flesh. But that's not a discouragement
to pursue that. We're not gonna perfectly attain
in this flesh to that. We're gonna pursue that till
the day of our death. And rightly so. But it's a significant
attainment. It's a life-giving attainment
to come to the place where Christ really is all. And that's not
just a slogan or something that we use. But to come to the place
where he really is all, and you read what we've looked at already
in this chapter, you can see that's where Paul was. I'm running
after him. I want to apprehend the one that
apprehended me. I want to know him and the power
of his resurrection. I must win Christ. He didn't
consider himself to fully have attained to that, but there is
a perfection in coming to the place where you know that that's
what needs to be attained. You see what I'm saying? Everything
else is cast aside and considered dumb, but Christ, that's an attainment. That's a perfection in the word
of the scripture, which just means you've grown up. The Lord's
grown you up. He's given you, he's brought
you to a place where religion is vanity, where all else is
vanity, except the person of Christ. So he didn't consider himself
to have, he didn't say, okay, I know Christ now, I'm done. Once you know him, there is an
attainment that you want to arrive at. And what is it? To know him.
Isn't that what he said? That I may know him. Well, don't
you know him, Paul? He knocked you down and blinded
you and revealed himself to you and said, I've chosen you to
preach to the Gentiles. Don't you know who you're dealing
with? Yes. And that's why I want to know
him. Now I've come to this, I've arrived at a place where Christ
is all. Now I can set about in the pursuit
of knowing who he is perfectly, everything that can be known
about him. And we will arrive one day, not in this life, but
we're gonna pursue it in this life. And that's what Paul was
doing. And I'll tell you this, I don't
know when God brought me to that place. And I know that he's still
bringing me to that place at the same time where Christ really
is all. It's a continual pursuit now,
a pressing toward that mark. But first, before you fully pursue
Christ, before you run for the goal,
the mark that is Christ, you've got to first come to the place
that he's the mark, he's the goal, he's the point, he's the end of the law for righteousness. You've got
to come first to the place where religion is done to you. That's an arrival. That's a perfection,
verse 16. It ain't perfection, verse 12
yet. but in order to pursue a perfect
understanding of Christ, you've got to come to the place where
what you're pursuing is a perfect understanding of a person and
not just an understanding of doctrines that you disagree with
people on and love to argue about and love to be able to say, I
know more than you. You've got to come to that place first.
You got to arrive there. And that's what he's saying.
As many as you have arrived at that place, be thus minded. Go on with me to pursue him now
that we know that he is what we're pursuing. And not our own
understanding, our own wisdom. God at a certain place of maturity for a believer, God brings us to that place.
We don't achieve it by any fleshly means. God brings us to that
place where he makes all of the trappings of religion tiresome
and worthless to us. Paul describes this thing in
another way, in another place. We're talking about the simplicity
that is in Christ. First, you come there. First, God brings you there where
Christ is all inclusive, where he is all, he's all you want,
he's all you need, he's all you've got, and that's all you want. And then begins the pursuit of
knowing him perfect. I wanna know everything about
him. I wanna know him. The way he knows me is the way
we're going to know him ultimately. But we're going to pursue that
all the days of our life, that I may know thee. You have to have already arrived
at a certain place to be able to say, here's what I want. I
want to know him. Save your arguments, save your
debates, save your points of doctrine unless they exalt and
point to him. It's not I know more than you.
It's we either know, if we know Him, we know everything. And
if we don't know Him, we know nothing. So where's the competition
there? The all inclusiveness that's
in Christ. Paul said, God's brought me there. If you haven't arrived there,
but when you arrive there, then you realize that you haven't
even begun before, and you strive to attain just him from that
place of arrival and that place of attainment. And let me explain what I mean
by the trappings of religion, what Paul called dung in this
chapter now. Of course, when we think about
religion, of course, the expansive and elaborate cathedrals
and statues and symbols and all the visual extravagance of religion,
of course that's all just fleshly indulgence. That's all that is.
That has nothing to do with godliness. Of course that's true, and that's
part of this, I suppose. Of course the rituals and the
repetitions and the model prayers and the incantations are vain
and blasphemous. Of course they are. Of course
the hierarchy, you know, the bishops and the archbishops and
the cardinals and all of this kind of stuff, the self-important,
feminine, pampered, and satanic men are repulsive. Of course
they are. Also empty, useless, and abhorrent,
though, are the lengthy discourses on doctrinal points that people
who despise the religion of the outward and the flesh might find
themselves embarking upon, to prove others wrong, to puff yourself
up with knowledge, with a critical eye and a cold and scathing heart,
without once telling a sinner how God saves a sinner. or ever say anything good about
God's son. You got no use for that anymore
either. A Calvinist would never have a
stupid unscriptural altar call, but I've heard one ramble for
an hour and 20 minutes about how there's no such thing as
unconditional love. When God's in secret, sir, I
will love them freely. Maybe just take that scripture
and expound it rather than... Those kinds of miscarriages of
a sermon happen when a sinner starts a message in his own head
and not from the simple, clear word of God. You see what Paul's
despite? All of his religion, all of the
good stuff. He didn't say, I cast aside all
of the bad, when I stole this or, you know, stuff that people consider sins
that they know are bad, I renounce all of the sins that I called
righteousnesses. I renounce not just the flamboyant
religion, the colorful, flamboyant, appealing to the senses religion,
but the religion that is all focused on dotting I's and crossing
T's and knowing more and debating and arguing and division, just as bad. When you use the scriptures to
try to prove an idea in your head, you end up preaching things
like that. I've heard lengthy discourses
on what imputation is, and that's fine. The doctrine of imputation
is taught in the scripture. But it was an argument that imputation
is just God declaring something to be what it already is. And
that's just not true. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5.18.
All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus
Christ. and hath given to us the ministry
of reconciliation. That was the point of the sacrificed
lamb, the blood on the mercy seat in the Old Testament at
one month. Reconciliation with God. So it's
the gospel. He's given us the gospel of reconciliation
to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them. and have committed
us to us the word of reconciliation. He goes on to say clearly that
our sins, our iniquities were imputed to Christ and not to
us. That's not just declaring something true that was already
true. That's God giving himself for my sins. So that the reality
of my sin now is the reality of righteousness in Christ. That's
a change. That's salvation is what that
is. But my whole point here, if my sins were imputed to the
Lord Jesus Christ and his perfect righteousness to me, that's him
saving me. That's not a redundant declaration
of God and to be dismissed as such, but you see how easy it
is to get off of preaching a person. And here's why I wanted to use
that scripture in that example. Notice carefully that the refuting
of nonsense by the word of God, when somebody preaches something
and you're sitting there thinking of scriptures that just don't,
you're wrong. I've heard people say flat out,
faith doesn't save. Okay, you can make that argument.
Or you could listen to the word of God where the son of God himself
said your faith just saved you. and find out what he was saying
when he said that. What I'm trying to do is make
an equivalence here between the flamboyant and clearly, I mean,
anybody with any understanding at all knows that religion is
a scam. All they care about is your money
and the numbers and the notoriety. But so is orthodox preaching. that misses Christ. But notice carefully that the
refuting of that nonsense by the word of God is not just replacing
one doctrine with another, it's replacing doctrine with Christ
and Him crucified. It's saying when my sins were
charged to God's son, that was him not imputing them to me.
It's not just a better doctrine than the one that I heard for
45 minutes. It's a person in what he did
for me. That's the point of our text.
Let's be thus minded that Christ is all. And then we can begin
to pursue him with all of our heart until the day that we die. And by his grace, maybe grow
a little bit until the day that we're made just like him, just
like him. And we know him even as we're
known. There are countless ways to not
preach Christ alone. Just countless. And the Lord
brings a believer to the place where only Christ alone will
do. Are you perfect in that sense,
at least? Are you mature? Are you an adult spiritually
to that point yet? Am I? All this book does is declare
the Son of God. That's all it does. It doesn't
say a bunch of stuff. It says one thing a bunch of
times. When we see that, that it's the
Son of God revealed, we begin, we merely begin to strive for
the perfection of verse 12. We come to the attainment of
verse 16 and begin to pursue the attainment of verse 12. Once we know him in his simplicity,
then our cry is the same as Paul's, that I may know him. In both
perfects, it's Christ. Arriving at Christ alone is an
attainment. that is a great and rare gift
of God. But those who arrive at Christ, and yes, you've taken your heart
off of all else. When you come to that place,
you can never again trust yourself. As much as fallible as we are,
and we begin to think that way, the Lord will reel you in. He's
not gonna let you go. That's the last part of verse
16. He'll let you know. He'll straighten
you out. If you've arrived at that place
and you stray one inch from it, the Lord will straighten you
out. We'll talk about that a little
bit more in a minute, Lord willing. But you've taken all your eyes
off of everything but Christ. But you don't then say, I'm glad
I've arrived. When you come to the attainment
of verse 16, you don't say, well, I'm glad I've arrived now. I
can just, you know, enjoy the perfection of it. Once all but Christ is done,
then the taking of the yoke of Christ upon us and learning of
Him, it just begins. When Simon was sinking beneath
the waves, it wasn't his knowledge of scriptural truths that were
any help to him then. And don't misunderstand me now.
Of course, we would never diminish the preciousness and the necessity
of true doctrine. It just means teaching. The Lord
has taught us, but don't trust your understanding of the teaching. Trust the one that's being taught. The purpose of the doctrine is
Christ. The end of the law, Christ. The goal of the law, Christ. And the law is not just the 10
commandments. It's everything God ever said.
The goal of it is Christ. If you are comforted by your
knowledge of truth, then you don't know you're sinking. When
you sink and you know it, you're gonna cry to the one that you
learned about in the scriptures. I'm talking about today. If you
begin to sink this afternoon, you're gonna cry to the one that's
been taught you. You're gonna cry to the one you've
come to know through the teaching. You're not just gonna say, I
know there's a resurrection. You're gonna say, I know who
he is. That's when the Lord's brought
you to an attainment that's so rare and so precious that all
you're gonna want is to know him more. The Lord made this so plain.
Turn with me to John 5, 39. This is so plain. I sit here
and try to be as clear as I can for two hours, and the Lord just
clears it up. He just clears it up. Listen
to John 5.39, look at it with me. He's speaking to the Pharisees
who had memorized, many of them, they claim to have memorized
the whole Old Testament. They could tell you every word
of it. Skeptical about that. I believe
it when I heard him recited take about four days to That was their
claim that was there that was what they trusted their knowledge
of the scriptures and look the Lord Jesus said in 539 of John
search the scriptures and You remember how that when the Pharisees
would do something stupid, just like we would do, you know, in
the same situation, unless the Lord prevented it, they'd do
something stupid. And he said, don't you know the
scriptures? You talk about an insult now. You ask a Pharisee
that question and you're in for a, you're gonna see the veins
stand out on their neck. Don't you know the script? That's
what they prided themselves on. And here in this context, he's
saying to them, search the scriptures. You need to read it again. You
need to search, you need to dig. Dig for the treasure. Because
here's the problem, in them you think you have eternal life.
Well, wait a minute, didn't Paul said this gospel is able to make
you wise into salvation? Yes, but that's not what our
Lord's talking about. He's telling them you're trusting
in your knowledge of the scriptures. You're trusting in your doctrine. And here's the foolishness of
that. Everything in this doctrine is
telling you not to trust the doctrine, but the One who's taught
on every page of the doctrine, the One who declares Himself
in every line. You trust the Scriptures. You
think you have eternal life in the Scriptures, and all they
do is tell of Me, but you won't come to Me. All of God's Word
says, come to Christ. The Garden of Eden says, come
to Christ. What happened there says, come
to Christ. Abel's lamb says, come to Christ. Noah's ark says, come to Christ.
The brazen serpent, come to Christ. And when he came down here, what
did he say? Come to me. And you search these scriptures
and you know them, you think perfectly, you can answer any
question. I'm the Bible answer man. I heard somebody say that
one time. When the whole of God's Word
is cried out, Christ is all, you must have the Son of God.
He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. It's not complicated, and yet
you've missed him. And you will not come to me. There's man's free will. Pilate
delivered him under their will and they spat on him, they mocked
him, they pushed him in the face till he didn't look like a man
anymore, ripped his beard out and whipped him till he didn't
look like a man anymore. And they laughed at him while
he bled out on a wooden cross. You will not come to me. that
you might have life. If you knew the first thing,
if you knew the ABCs of scripture, if you knew them, if you knew
anything about the word of God, you'd have eternal life in me. The woman at the well, if you
had any idea who it is that's talking with you, you would ask
and I would give. He's coming for you. Hadn't seen
one of those in a while But do you see how simple this is how
all in it how focused? Paul is on this This is the this
is the place where the Lord has brought me, and he's saying be
the Get in on it If He's brought you to the place
where Christ is all, like He has me, then let's do verse 12
together. Let's press, let's seek, let's
strive for no other purpose than to
know God's Son, to trust Him, to know Him in His power. What
comfort it is to know Him in His power. when you're sinking
beneath the waves. You know who you're gonna say
save me to? The one that can save you, and you know it. God,
give us knowledge of Him. God, bring us to that place of
attainment. And may we never stop running
for Him as fast as we can. I may apprehend Him that apprehended
me. Paul's exhortation to those to
whom he writes is to be thus minded as he was by God's grace. But remember that what Paul saw
to be vain and repulsive, that which he would not have, amounted
to false doctrine. He believed the teaching that
the better you act, the better you are. God expects these things,
if I do that, You know, you go down the Roman road and you're
saved. It's all the same. 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 years ago, or at the Baptist
church this morning, it's the same thing. Do this, this, and
this, say this, this, and this, repeat this, this, and this,
and you're saved. False doctrine. That's what Paul
said, I don't want anything to do with, but what he ran for
was not better doctrine. He was a person. God give us
that understanding. What made all of that repulsive
to him was a revelation of God's son. Be thus minded. How was Paul minded? I must win
Christ. I want to know Christ. I want
to be found in Christ. I want only the righteousness
of Christ. And in the pursuit of the Lord
Jesus Christ, everything else is dumb. Beat us, man. The reason the doctrine is precious
is that it teaches us who he is and what he did. The reason the scriptures are
precious is because of what Paul wrote in Romans 1.1, I'm Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto
the gospel of God, which he had promised to for by his prophets
in the holy scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ. which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh and declared to be the son of
God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection
of the dead. That's why God has an Old Testament.
That's why God has a New Testament. And that's why he put one in
your lap, that you might know him. And those who have come to the
attainment at least of this, that Christ is all, that's by
God's grace. And so what does that mean? If
you stray from it, where's his grace then? He'll reveal it to
you. Once you know the difference,
you know the difference, don't you? Oh yeah, our flesh now,
it'll wonder. It'll stumble. We'll look at the winds and the
waves too, boisterous and threatening. Take our eyes off the Son of
God. But not for long. Not long enough
to sink all the way down. That's grace too. If we stray, if we drift, if
we forget, and we do, God won't let you drift far. Isn't that
comforting? Be thus-minded. Be thus-minded,
that is don't drift. Focus, be thus-minded. Don't drift, don't forget, but
don't be troubled about thinking it's all up to you. No, no, we come to Him to rest. not to depend on our flesh. We pursue Christ now, but his
goodness and his mercy have pursued us all the days of our lives and before and beyond. Will he let us stumble and fall
and fail in our pursuit of him when eternity cannot tell the
story? of His relentless love for us. When He made His own soul an
offering for our sin to the end, that we might be with Him forever.
Will He let us fall now? So praise His grace. If we've attained anything, and
in verse 17, we didn't look at much, but look at it. where to we have already attained.
Let us walk by this same rule. Let us mind the same thing to
whatever place you've come in your understanding of that, that Christ is all from that
point, press. wherever you're at with it, press,
be thus minded. And if we can say hitherto, the
Lord has helped me, we can also say, he'll never leave me, will
forsake me.